[edit] History
Urdu arose in the
contact situation which developed from the invasions of the
Indian subcontinent by
Persian and
Turkic dynasties from the 11th century onwards,
[12] first as
Sultan Mahmud of the
Ghaznavid empire conquered
Punjab in the early 11th century, then when the
Ghurids invaded northern India in the 12th century, and most decisively with the establishment of the
Delhi Sultanate.
The official language of the
Ghurids,
Delhi Sultanate, the
Mughal Empire, and their successor states, as well as the cultured language of poetry and literature, was
Persian, while the language of religion was
Arabic. Most of the
Sultans and nobility in the Sultanate period were Turks from
Central Asia who spoke
Turkic as their mother tongue. The
Mughals were also Chagatai, but later adopted Persian.
Muzaffar Alam asserts that Persian became the
lingua franca of the empire under Akbar for various political and social factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature.
[13] However, the armies, merchants, preachers,
Sufis, and later the court, also incorporated the local people and the medieval Hindu literary language,
Braj Bhasha. This new contact language soon incorporated other dialects, such as
Haryanvi,
Panjabi, and in the 17th century
Khariboli, the dialect of the new capital at
Delhi. By 1800, Khariboli had become dominant.
[14]
The language went by several names over the years:
Hindawi or
Hindī, "[language] of India";
Dehlavi "of Delhi";
Hindustani, "of
Hindustan"; and
Zaban-e-Urdu, "the language of the [army] camp", from which came the current name of
Urdu around the year 1800.
When
Wali Mohammed Wali arrived in Delhi, he established Hindustani with a light smattering of Persian words, a
register called
Rekhta, for poetry; previously the language of poetry had been Persian. When the Delhi Sultanate expanded south to the
Deccan Plateau, they carried their literary language with them, and it was influenced there by more southerly languages, producing the
Dakhini dialect of Urdu. During this time Hindustani was the language of both Hindus and Muslims. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the official language in 1837 and was made coofficial along with English in the
British Raj. This triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native
Devanagari script. This "Hindi" replaced traditional Urdu as the official register of
Bihar in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of "Urdu" for Muslims and "Hindi" for Hindus, a divide that was formalized with the division of India and Pakistan after independence from the British, though there are Hindu poets who continue to write in Urdu to this day.
Although there have been attempts to purge Urdu and Hindi, respectively, of their
Sanskrit and Persian words, and new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and Sanskrit for Hindi, this has primarily affected academic and literary vocabulary, and both national standards remain heavily influenced by both Persian and Sanskrit.
[15] English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a coofficial language.
[edit] Speakers and geographic distribution
The phrase
Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla ("The language of the exalted camp") written in
Nastaʿlīq script.
There are between 60 and 70 million speakers of Urdu: there were 52 million in India per the 2001 census, some 6% of the population;
[16] 13 million in Pakistan in 2008, or 8%;
[17] and several hundred thousand apiece in the
United Kingdom,
Saudi Arabia,
United States, and
Bangladesh, where it is called "Bihari".
[18] However, a knowledge of Urdu allows one to speak with far more people than that, as
Hindi-Urdu is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world, after
Mandarin,
English, and
Spanish.
[1][19]
Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, including in Pakistan itself. Urdu in Pakistan has undergone changes and has lately incorporated and borrowed many words from Pakistani languages like
Pashto,
Punjabi,
Sindhi and
Balti, thus allowing speakers of the language in Pakistan to distinguish themselves more easily and giving the language a decidedly
Pakistani Flavour. Similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like
Dakhni (
Deccan) of South India, and Khariboli of the
Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdu's similarity to
Hindi, speakers of the two languages can easily understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. The syntax (grammar), morphology, and the core vocabulary are essentially identical. Thus linguists usually count them as one single language and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons.
[20] In Pakistan Urdu is mostly learned as a second or a third language as nearly 93% of Pakistan's population has a mother tongue other than Urdu. Despite this, Urdu was chosen as a token of unity and as a
lingua franca so as not to give any native Pakistani language preference over the other. Urdu is therefore spoken and understood by the vast majority in some form or another, including a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as
Karachi,
Lahore,
Sialkot,
Rawalpindi,
Islamabad,
Multan,
Faisalabad,
Hyderabad,
Peshawar,
Quetta,
Jhang,
Sargodha and
Skardu. It is written, spoken and used in all
Provinces/Territories of Pakistan despite the fact that the people from differing provinces may have different indigenous languages, as from the fact that it is the "base language" of the country. For this reason, it is also taught as a compulsory subject up to higher secondary school in both English and Urdu medium school systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers from people whose mother tongue is one of the
State languages of Pakistan such as
Punjabi,
Pashto,
Sindhi,
Balochi,
Potwari,
Hindko,
Pahari,
Saraiki,
Balti, and
Brahui but they can read and write only Urdu. It is absorbing many words from the regional languages of Pakistan. This variation of Urdu is sometimes referred to as Pakistani Urdu. So while most of the population is conversant in Urdu, it is the mother tongue only of an estimated 7% of the population, mainly Muslim immigrants (known as
Muhajir in Pakistan) from different parts of the
Indian subcontinent (India, Burma, Bangladesh etc.). The regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. There are millions of Pakistanis whose mother tongue is not Urdu, but since they have studied in Urdu medium schools, they can read and write Urdu along with their native language. Most of the nearly five million
Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as
Pashtun,
Tajik,
Uzbek,
Hazarvi, and
Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu. With such a large number of people(s) speaking Urdu, the language has in recent years acquired a peculiar Pakistani flavour further distinguishing it from the Urdu spoken by native speakers and diversifying the language even further.
A great number of newspapers are published in Urdu in
Pakistan, including the
Daily Jang,
Nawa-i-Waqt,
Millat, among many others (see
List of newspapers in Pakistan#Urdu-language newspapers).
In
India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim minorities or cities which were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These include parts of
Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar,
Andhra Pradesh,
Maharashtra (
Marathwada),
Karnataka and cities namely
Lucknow,
Delhi,
Bareilly,
Meerut,
Saharanpur,
Muzaffarnagar,
Roorkee,
Deoband,
Moradabad,
Azamgarh,
Bijnor,
Najibabad,
Rampur,
Aligarh,
Allahabad,
Gorakhpur,
Agra,
Kanpur,
Badaun,
Bhopal,
Hyderabad,
Aurangabad,
Bengaluru,
Kolkata,
Mysore,
Patna,
Gulbarga,
Nanded,
Bidar,
Ajmer, and
Ahmedabad.
[21] Some Indian schools teach Urdu as a first language and have their own syllabus and exams. Indian
madrasahs also teach
Arabic as well as Urdu. India has more than 3,000 Urdu publications including 405 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Sahara Urdu, Daily Salar, Hindustan Express, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily,
The Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in
Bengaluru,
Mysore,
Hyderabad, and
Mumbai (see
List of newspapers in India).
In
Nepal, there are few publications in Urdu language, written in
Nastaliq or local scripts.
Radio Nepal broadcasts a short news pragramme in Urdu on a daily basis. Speakers of the language are mainly concentrated in the southern
Terai province and in the capital
Kathmandu. There are a few historical settlements of Muslim population in the hills around Kaski district who continue to learn Urdu even today.
Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian workers in the major urban centres of the
Persian Gulf countries and
Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centres of the
United Kingdom, the
United States,
Canada,
Germany,
Norway, and
Australia. Along with
Arabic, Urdu is among the immigrant languages with most speakers in
Catalonia.
[22]
[edit] Official status
Urdu is the national and one of the two official languages (
Qaumi Zabaan) of
Pakistan, the other being
English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, while the state-by-state languages (languages spoken throughout various regions) are the
provincial languages. It is used in
education,
literature, office and court business.
[23] It holds in itself a repository of the
cultural and
social heritage of the country.
[24] Although English is used in most elite circles, and
Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the
lingua franca and national language in Pakistan.
Urdu is also one of the officially recognised languages in
India and has official language status in the
Indian states of
Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar,
[25] Andhra Pradesh,
Jharkhand,
Jammu and Kashmir and the national capital,
New Delhi.
In
Jammu and Kashmir, section 145 of the Kashmir Constitution provides: "The official language of the State shall be Urdu but the English language shall unless the Legislature by law otherwise provides, continue to be used for all the official purposes of the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of the Constitution." As of 2010, the English language continues to be used as an official language for more than 90% of official work in Kashmir.
[26] There are ongoing efforts to make Kashmiri and Dogri, spoken as mother tongues by nearly 80% of the population of Indian-administered Kashmir, as official languages alongside English.
The importance of Urdu
[27] in the Muslim world is visible in the Holy cities of
Mecca and
Medina in
Saudi Arabia, where most informational signage is written in Arabic, English and Urdu, and sometimes in other languages.
[edit] Dialects
Urdu has a few recognised dialects, including
Dakhni,
Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the
Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region).
Dakhni (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in
Deccan region of southern India. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from
Marathi and
Telugu language, as well as some vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu, and may actually be a distinct Hindi language. In terms of pronunciation, the easiest way to recognize a native speaker is their pronunciation of the letter "qāf" (ﻕ) as "kh" (ﺥ). Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of
Maharashtra,
Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India. A number of daily newspapers and several monthly magazines in Urdu are published in these states.
Pakistani variant of the language spoken in
Pakistan; it becomes increasingly divergent from the Indian dialects and forms of Urdu as it has absorbed many loan words, proverbs and phonetics from Pakistan's indigenous languages such as
Pashto,
Panjabi and
Sindhi. Furthermore, due to the region's history, the Urdu dialect of Pakistan draws heavily from the
Persian and
Arabic languages, and the intonation and pronunciation are informal compared with corresponding Indian dialects.
In addition,
Rekhta (or Rekhti), the language of Urdu poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect, one famously used by several British Indian poets of high acclaim in the bulk of their work. These included
Mirza Ghalib,
Mir Taqi Mir and
Muhammad Iqbal, the national poet-philosopher of Pakistan.
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Grammar
[edit] Vocabulary
Urdu has a vocabulary rich in words with and
Middle Eastern origins. The language's
Indic base has been enriched by borrowing from
Persian and
Arabic. There are also a smaller number of borrowings from
Chagatai,
Portuguese, and more recently
English. Many of the words of Arabic origin have been adopted through Persian and have different pronunciations and nuances of meaning and usage than they do in Arabic.
[edit] Levels of formality
Urdu in its less formalised
register has been referred to as a
rekhta (ریختہ,
[reːxt̪aː]), meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of Urdu is sometimes referred to as
zabān-e-Urdu-e-mo'alla (زبان اردو معلہ
[zəbaːn eː ʊrd̪uː eː moəllaː]), the "Language of the Exalted Camp", referring to the Imperial Bazar.
[28]
The
etymology of the word used in the Urdu language for the most part decides how polite or refined one's speech is. For example, Urdu speakers would distinguish between پانی
pānī and آب
āb, both meaning "water" for example, or between آدمی
ādmi and مرد
mard, meaning "man". The former in each set is used colloquially and has older
Hindustani origins, while the latter is used formally and poetically, being of
Persian origin.
If a word is of
Persian or
Arabic origin, the level of speech is considered to be more formal and grand. Similarly, if
Persian or
Arabic grammar constructs, such as the
izafat, are used in Urdu, the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand. If a word is inherited from
Sanskrit, the level of speech is considered more colloquial and personal.
[29]
That distinction has likenesses with the division between words from a French or Old English origin while speaking English.
[edit] Politeness
Urdu syntax and vocabulary reflect a three tiered system of politeness called
ādāb. Due to its emphasis on politeness and propriety, Urdu has always been considered an elevated, somewhat aristocratic, language in
South Asia. It continues to conjure a subtle, polished affect in South Asian linguistic and literary sensibilities and thus continues to be preferred for song-writing and poetry, even by non-native speakers.
Any
verb can be conjugated as per three or four different tiers of politeness. For example, the verb
to speak in Urdu is
bolnā (بولنا) and the verb
to sit is
baiţhnā (بیٹھنا). The imperatives "speak!" and "sit!" can thus be conjugated five different ways, each marking subtle variation in politeness and propriety. These permutations exclude a host of auxiliary verbs and expressions which can be added to these verbs to add even greater degree of subtle variation. For extremely polite or formal situations, nearly all commonly used verbs have equivalent formal synonyms (Row 5 below). The phrase category '[āp] bolo', mentioned in Row 3 below, is associated with the
Punjabi usage 'tusi bolo' and is rarely used in written Urdu. It is considered grammatically incorrect, particularly in the Gangetic Plain, where the influence of Punjabi on Urdu is minimal.
| Literary* | [tu] bol! | تو بول | [tu] baiţh! | تو بیٹھ |
| Casual and Intimate | [tum] bolo. | تم بولو | [tum] baiţho | تم بیٹھو |
| Polite and Intimate | [āp] bolo | آپ بولو | [āp] baiţho. | آپ بیٹھو |
| Formal yet Intimate | [āp] bolen | آپ بولیں | [āp] baiţhen. | آپ بیٹھیں |
| Polite and Formal | [āp] bolīye | آپ بولیئے | [āp] baiţhīye. | آپ بیٹھیئے |
| Ceremonial / Extremely Formal | [āp] farmaīye | آپ فرمایئے | [āp] tašrīf-rakhīye. | آپ تشریف رکھیئے |
Similarly,
nouns are also marked for politeness and formality. For example,
uskī vālida, "his mother" is a politer way of say
uskī ammī. Uskī vālida-mohtarmā is an even more polite reference, while saying
uskī mān would be construed as derogatory. None of these forms are
slang or shortenings, and all are encountered in writing.
Expressions are also marked or politeness. For example, the expression "No!" could be
nā,
nahīn or
jī-nahīn in order of politeness. Similarly, "Yes!" can be
hān-jī,
hān,
jī or
jī-hān in order of politeness.
[edit] Writing system
Main article:
Urdu alphabet
The Urdu Nastaʿliq alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Latin alphabets
[edit] Persian script
Urdu is written right-to left in an extension of the
Persian alphabet, which is itself an extension of the
Arabic alphabet. Urdu is associated with the
Nastaʿlīq style of
Persian calligraphy, whereas
Arabic is generally written in the simpler
Naskh style.
Nasta’liq is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were hand-written by masters of calligraphy, known as
katib or
khush-navees, until the late 1980s.
[edit] Kaithi script
Urdu was also written in the
Kaithi script. A highly Persianized and technical form of Urdu was the
lingua franca of the law courts of the British administration in
Bengal,
Bihar, and the North-West Provinces & Oudh. Until the late 19th century, all proceedings and court transactions in this register of Urdu were written officially in the Persian script. In 1880,
Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of
Bengal and
Bihar and ordered the exclusive use of
Kaithi, a popular script used for both Urdu and
Hindi.
[30] Kaithi's association with Urdu and
Hindi was ultimately eliminated by the political contest between these languages and their scripts, in which the Persian script was definitively linked to Urdu.
[edit] Devanagari script
More recently in India, Urdu speakers have adopted Devanagari for publishing Urdu periodicals and have innovated new strategies to mark Urdū in Devanagari as distinct from Hindi in Devanagari.
[31] The popular Urdu monthly magazine, महकता आंचल (
Mahakta Anchal), is published in Delhi in Devanagari in order to target the generation of Muslim boys and girls who do not know the Persian script.
[32] Such publishers have introduced new orthographic features into Devanagari for the purpose of representing Urdu sounds. One example is the use of अ (Devanagari a) with vowel signs to mimic contexts of ع (‘ain). To Urdu publishers, the use of Devanagari gives them a greater audience, but helps them to preserve the distinct identity of Urdu when written in Devanagari.[citation needed]
[edit] Roman script
Urdu is occasionally also written in the
Roman script.
Roman Urdu has been used since the days of the
British Raj, partly as a result of the availability and low cost of Roman
movable type for printing presses. The use of Roman Urdu was common in contexts such as product labels. Today it is regaining popularity among users of text-messaging and Internet services and is developing its own style and conventions.
Habib R. Sulemani says,
"The younger generation of Urdu-speaking people around the world, especially Pakistan, are using Romanised Urdu on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. Typically, in that sense, a person from Islamabad in Pakistan may chat with another in Delhi in India on the Internet only in Roman Urdū. They both speak the same language but would have different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but can’t write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman Urdu is a blessing for such a population."[33] Roman Urdu also holds significance among the Christians of Pakistan and North India. Urdū was the dominant native language among Christians of Karachi and Lahore in present-day Pakistan and Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh Rajasthan in India, during the early part of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and is still used by Christians in these places. Pakistani and Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urdū. Thus Roman Urdū was a common way of writing among Pakistani and Indian Christians in these areas up to the 1960s. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Urdū Bibles which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman Urdū. However, the usage of Roman Urdū is declining with the wider use of Hindi and English in these states.[citation needed]
[edit] Differences with Perso-Arabic script
Perso-Arabic script has been extended for Urdu with additional letters ٹ,ڈ,ڑ. In order to make the language suitable for the people of South Asia (mainly Pakistan), two letters ہ and ی have added dimensions in use. ہ is used independently as any other letter in words such as ہم (we) and باہم (mutual). As an extended use, ہ is also used denote uniquely defined phonetics of South Asian origin. Here it is referred as
do-chashmi he and it follows the nearest letters of the Perso-Arabic script to render the required phonetic. Some example of the words are دھڑکن (heartbeat), بھارت (India). On the other hand ی is used in two vowel forms:
Chhoti ye (ی) and
Badi ye (ے).
Chhoti ye denotes the vowel sound similar to "ea" in the English word beat as in the word ساتھی (companion).
Chhoti ye is also used as the Urdu consonant "Y" as in word یار (companion/friend).
Badi ye is supposed to give the sound similar to "a" in the word "late" (full vowel sound - not like a diphthong) as in the word کے (of). However, in the written form both
badi ye and
chhoti ye are same when the vowel falls in the middle of a word and the letters need to be joint according to the rules of the Urdu grammar.
Badi ye is also used to play a supporting role for a diphthong sound such as the English "i" as in the word "bite" as in the word مے (wine). However, no difference of
ye is seen in words such as کیسا (how) where the vowel comes in the middle of the written word. Similarly the letter و is used to denote vowel sound -oo similar to the word "food" as in لوٹ (loot), "o" similar to the word "vote" as in دو (two) and it is also used as a consonant "w" similar to the word "war" as in وظیفہ (pension). It is also used as a supportive letter in the diphthong construction similar to the "ou" in the word "mount" as in the word کون (who). و is silent in many word of Persian origin such as خواب (dream), خواہش (desire). It has diminutive sound similar to "ou" in words such as "would", "could" as in the words خود (self), خوش (happy). The vowel/accent marks (اعراب) mainly support the core Arabic vowels. Non-Arabic vowels such as -o- in
mor مور- (peacock) and the -e- as in Estonia (ایسٹونیا) are referred as مجہول (alien/ignorant phonetics) and hence are not supported by the vowel/accent marks (اعراب). A description of these vowel marks and the word formation in Urdu can be found at this
website.
[edit] Encoding Urdu in Unicode
Like other writing systems derived from the Arabic Script, Urdu uses the 0600-06FF Unicode range.
[34] Certain glyphs in this range appear visually similar (or identical when presented using particular fonts) even though the underlying encoding is different. This presents problems for information storage and retrieval. For example, the University of Chicago's electronic copy of John Shakespear's "A Dictionary, Hindustani, and English"
[35] includes the word 'بهارت' (India). Searching for the string "بھارت" returns no results, while querying with the (identical-looking in many fonts) string "بهارت" returns the correct entry.
[36] This is because the medial form of the Urdu letter
do chashmi he (U+06BE) - used to form aspirate digraphs in Urdu - is visually identical in its medial form to the Arabic letter
hāʾ (U+0647; phonetic value /h/). In Urdu, the /h/ phoneme is represented by the character U+06C1, called
gol he (round
he), or
chhoti he (small
he).
[Confusable Glyphs in Urdu and Arabic script]
| Urdu-use Characters | Arabic-use Characters |
| ہ (U+06C1), ھ (U+06BE) | ه (U+0647) |
| ی (U+06CC) | ى (U+0649), ي (U+064A) |
| ک (U+06A9) | ك (U+0643) |
In 2003, the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP)
[37] - a research organization affiliated with Pakistan's
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences - produced a proposal for mapping from the 1-byte
UZT encoding of Urdu characters to the Unicode standard.
[38] This proposal suggests a preferred Unicode glyph for each character in the Urdu alphabet.
[edit] Sample text
The following is a sample text in
zabān-e urdū-e muʿallā (formal Urdu), of the Article 1 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the
United Nations):
[edit] Perso-Arabic text
- دفعہ 1: تمام انسان آزاد اور حقوق و عزت کے اعتبار سے برابر پیدا ہوۓ ہیں۔ انہیں ضمیر اور عقل ودیعت ہوئی ہے۔ اس لئے انہیں ایک دوسرے کے ساتھ بھائی چارے کا سلوک کرنا چاہئے
[edit] Transliteration (ALA-LC)
- Dafʻah 1: Tamām insān āzād aur ḥuqūq o ʻizzat ke iʻtibār se barābar paidā hu’e haiṇ. Unheṇ zamīr aur ʻaql wadīʻat hu’ī he. Isli’e unheṇ ek dūsre ke sāth bhā’ī chāre kā sulūk karnā chāhi’e.
[edit] IPA Transcription
- d̪əfa ek: t̪əmam ɪnsan azad̪ ɔɾ hʊquq o ʔizət̪ ke ɪʔt̪ɪbaɾ se bəɾabəɾ pɛda hʊe hẽ. ʊnʱẽ zəmiɾ ɔɾ ʔəqəl ʋədiət̪ hʊi he. ɪslɪe ʊnʱẽ ek d̪usɾe ke sat̪ʰ bʱai tʃaɾe ka sʊluk kəɾna tʃahɪe.
[edit] Gloss (word-for-word)
- Article 1: All humans free[,] and rights and dignity *('s) consideration from equal born are. To them conscience and intellect endowed is. Therefore, they one another *('s) with brotherhood *('s) treatment do should.
[edit] Translation (grammatical)
- Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Note: *('s) represents a possessive case which when written is preceded by the possessor and followed by the possessed, unlike the English "of".
[edit] Literature
Urdu has become a literary language only in recent centuries, as Persian and Arabic were formerly the idioms of choice for "elevated" subjects. However, despite its relatively late development, Urdu literature boasts some world-recognised artists and a considerable corpus.[citation needed]
[edit] Religious
Urdu holds the largest collection of works on
Islamic literature and
Sharia after Arabic. These include translations and interpretation of the
Qur'an as well as commentary on
Hadith,
Fiqh,
history,
spirituality,
Sufism and
metaphysics. A great number of classical texts from
Arabic and
Persian, have also been translated into Urdu. Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of Urdu as a
lingua franca among Muslims of
South Asia, has meant that Islam-related works in Urdu far outnumber such works in any other South Asian language.
[citation needed] Popular Islamic books are also written in Urdu.
[citation needed]
It is interesting to note that a treatise on Astrology was penned in Urdu by Pandit Roop Chand Joshi in the eighteenth century. The book, known as Lal Kitab, is widely popular in North India among astrologers and was written at a time when Urdu was very much spoken in the Brahmin families of that region.[citation needed]
[edit] Literary
Secular prose includes all categories of widely known fiction and non-fiction work, separable into genres.[citation needed] The dāstān, or tale, a traditional story which may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse.[citation needed] The afsāna, or short story, probably the best-known genre of Urdu fiction. The best-known afsāna writers, or afsāna nigār, in Urdu are Munshi Premchand, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Krishan Chander, Qurratulain Hyder (Qurat-ul-Ain Haider), Ismat Chughtai, Ghulam Abbas, and Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi. Towards the end of last century Paigham Afaqui's novel Makaan appeared with a reviving force for Urdu novel resulting into writing of novels getting a boost in Urdu literature and a number of writers like Ghazanfer, Abdus Samad, Sarwat Khan and Musharraf Alam Zauqi have taken the move forward. Munshi Premchand, became known as a pioneer in the afsāna, though some contend that his were not technically the first as Sir Ross Masood had already written many short stories in Urdu.[citation needed] Novels form a genre of their own, in the tradition of the English novel.[citation needed] Other genres include saférnāma (travel story), mazmoon (essay), sarguzisht (account/narrative), inshaeya (satirical essay), murasela (editorial), and khud navvisht (autobiography).[citation needed]
[edit] Poetry
Main article:
Urdu poetryUrdu has been one of the premier languages of poetry in South Asia for two centuries, and has developed a rich tradition in a variety of poetic genres. The
Ghazal in Urdu represents the most popular form of subjective music and poetry, while the
Nazm exemplifies the objective kind, often reserved for narrative, descriptive, didactic or satirical purposes. Under the broad head of the Nazm we may also include the classical forms of poems known by specific names such as
Masnavi (a long narrative poem in rhyming couplets on any theme: romantic, religious, or didactic),
Marsia (an elegy traditionally meant to commemorate the martyrdom of Hazrat
Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, and his comrades of the
Karbala fame), or
Qasida (a panegyric written in praise of a king or a nobleman), for all these poems have a single presiding subject, logically developed and concluded.
However, these poetic species have an old world aura about their subject and style, and are different from the modern Nazm, supposed to have come into vogue in the later part of the nineteenth century.[citation needed]
Probably the most widely recited, and memorised genre of contemporary Urdu poetry is
nāt—panegyric poetry written in praise of the Prophet
Muhammad.
Nāt can be of any formal category, but is most commonly in the
ghazal form. The language used in Urdu
nāt ranges from the intensely colloquial to a highly Persified formal language. The great early 20th century scholar
Ala Hazrat, Imam
Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, who wrote many of the most well known
nāts in Urdu (the collection of his poetic work is Hadaiq-e-Baqhshish), epitomised this range in a
ghazal of nine stanzas (
bayt) in which every stanza contains half a line each of Arabic, Persian, formal Urdu, and colloquial Hindi. The same poet composed a
salām—a poem of greeting to the Prophet Muhammad, derived from the unorthodox practice of
qiyam, or standing, during the
mawlid, or celebration of the birth of the Prophet—
Mustafā Jān-e Rahmat, which, due to being recited on Fridays in some Urdu speaking mosques throughout the world, is probably the more frequently recited Urdu poems of the modern era. Another notable
nāt natkhwan (writer) is Maulana Shabnam Kamali whose
nāts have been widely appreciated and acknowledged.
[citation needed]
Another important genre of Urdu prose are the poems commemorating the martyrdom of
Husayn ibn Ali(r.a) at the
Battle of Karbala, called
noha (نوحہ) and
marsia.
Anees and
Dabeer are famous in this regard.
[citation needed]
[edit] Terminology
Ash'ār (اشعار, couplet). It consists of two lines called
Misra (مصرعہ); first line is called مصرع اولی (
Misra-e-oola) and the second is called (مصرعہ ثانی) (
Misra-e-sānī). Each verse embodies a single thought or subject (singular) شعر
She'r.
[citation needed]
In the Urdu poetic tradition, most poets use a pen name called the
takhallus. This can be either a part of a poet's given name or something else adopted as an identity. The traditional convention in identifying Urdu poets is to mention the
takhallus at the end of the name. Thus Ghalib, whose official name and title was Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan, is referred to formally as Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, or in common parlance as just Mirza Ghalib. Because the
takhallus can be a part of their actual name, some poets end up having that part of their name repeated, such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
The word
takhallus is derived from Arabic, meaning "ending". This is because in the ghazal form, the poet would usually incorporate his or her pen name into the final couplet (
maqta) of each poem as a type of "signature".
[edit] Urdu poetry example
This is
Ghalib's famous couplet in which he compares himself to his great predecessor, the master poet
Mir:
[39]
| | ریختے کے تمہی استاد نہیں ہو غالب |
|
| کہتے ہیں اگلے زمانے میں کوئی میر بھی تھا |
|
[edit] Transliteration
- Rekhta ke tumhiⁿustād nahīⁿ ho Ghālib
- Kahte haiⁿ agle zamāne meⁿ ko'ī Mīr bhī thā
[edit] Translation
- You are not the only master of Rekhta*, Ghalib
- They say that in the past there also was someone named Mir.
- Rekhta was the name for the Urdu/Hindi language in Ghalib's days, when the distinction had not yet been made.[citation needed]
[edit] Urdu and Hindi
Modern Standard Urdu and
Modern Standard Hindi are considered different languages officially and in the
sociolinguistic sense. However, they are not even distinct dialects, but rather different literary styles of a single dialect,
Dehlavi. At the colloquial level they are virtually identical, to the point that speakers often cannot tell whether someone is speaking "Hindi" or "Urdu". There are minor differences in vocabulary and the pronunciation of foreign sounds, but the grammar is identical, and both styles have heavy Persian and Sanskrit influences. This ambiguous colloquial language is often called
Hindustani, and is intentionally used in Bollywood films to target a more universal audience, including Pakistan. In formal and academic
registers, however, the differences in vocabulary become substantial, with Urdu drawing from Arabic and Persian, and Hindi from Sanskrit, to the point where they become mutually unintelligible. There is also the convention, generally followed, of Urdu being written in Persio-Arabic script, and Hindi in Devanagari.
[40]
These two standardised registers of Hindustani have become so entrenched as separate languages that often nationalists, both
Muslim and
Hindu, claim that Urdu and Hindi have always been separate languages. There have been some observations that the "fully standardized" Hindi register is artificial enough to make it partially incomprehensible to many people classified as Hindi speakers.
[41][42]
Because of the difficulty in distinguishing between Urdu and Hindi speakers in India and Pakistan and estimating the number of people for whom Urdu is a second language the estimated number of speakers is uncertain and controversial. For further information the reader is referred to the following Wikipedia articles:
Hindi-Urdu controversy,
Hindustani language and
Hindi
[edit] Phrases
| English | Urdu | Transliteration | Notes |
| Peace be upon you (Hello) | السلام علیکم | assalāmu ‘alaikum | lit. "Peace be upon you." (from Arabic) |
| Peace be upon you too (Hello) | و علیکم السلام | waˈalaikum assalām | lit. "And upon you, peace." Response to assalāmu ʿalaikum (from Arabic) |
| Hello | (آداب (عرض ہے | ādāb (arz hai) | lit. "Regards (are expressed)", a very formal secular greeting |
| Goodbye | خُدا حافظ | khuda hāfiz | lit. "May God be your Guardian" (from Persian). |
| yes | ہاں | hāⁿ | casual |
| yes | جی | jī | formal |
| yes | جی ہاں | jī hāⁿ | confident formal |
| no | نہ | nā | casual |
| no | نہیں، جی نہیں | nahīⁿ, jī nahīⁿ | casual; jī nahīⁿ formal |
| please | مہربانی | meharbānī | lit. "kindness" Also used for "thank you" |
| thank you | شُکریہ | shukrīā | from Arabic shukran |
| Please come in | تشریف لائیے | tashrīf laīe | lit. "(Please) bring your honour" |
| Please have a seat | تشریف رکھیئے | tashrīf rakhīe | lit. "(Please) place your honour" |
| I am happy to meet you | آپ سے مل کر خوشی ہوئی | āp se mil kar khushī hūyī |
|
| Do you speak English? | کیا آپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ | kya āp angrezī bolte haiⁿ? | lit. "Do you speak English?" |
| I do not speak Urdu. | میں اردو نہیں بولتا/بولتی | maiⁿ urdū nahīⁿ boltā/boltī | boltā is masculine, boltī is feminine |
| My name is ... | میرا نام ۔۔۔ ہے | merā nām .... hai |
|
| Which way to Lahore? | لاھور کس طرف ہے؟ | lāhaur kis taraf hai? | lit. "What direction is Lahore in?" |
| Where is Lucknow? | لکھنؤ کہاں ہے؟ | Lakhnau kahāⁿ hai |
| Urdu is a good language. | اردو اچھی زبان ہے | urdū achhī zabān hai | lit. "Urdu is a good language" |
[edit] Software
The
Daily Jang/daily waqt was the first Urdu newspaper to be typeset digitally in
Nasta’liq by computer. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the Internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various Urdu software programmes, the most widespread of which is
InPage Desktop Publishing package.
Microsoft has included Urdu language support in all new versions of Windows and both
Windows Vista and
Microsoft Office 2007 are available in Urdu through
Language Interface Pack[43] support. Most Linux Desktop distributions allow the easy installation of Urdu support and translations as well.
[44]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Ethnologue: Statistical Summaries". SIL. 1999. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- ^ "A brief history of Urdu". BBC. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
- ^ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/619612/Urdu-language
- ^ List of languages by number of native speakers
- ^ Hindi By Yamuna Kachru http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ooH5VfLTQEQC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=urdu+heavy+persian&source=bl&ots=dG3qgmaV95&sig=WivP7AW9eRlTcp4oscBoHCBFEE0&hl=en&ei=9sp8SqzpLI6y-AaM5vxG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#v=onepage&q=urdu%20heavy%20persian&f=false
- ^ "Bringing Order to Linguistic Diversity: Language Planning in the British Raj". Language in India. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
- ^ "A Brief Hindi - Urdu FAQ". sikmirza. Archived from the original on 2007-12-02. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
- ^ "Hindi/Urdu Language Instruction". University of California, Davis. Archived from the original on 2008-04-05. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
- ^ "Ethnologue Report for Hindi". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
- ^ "Urdu and it's Contribution to Secular Values". South Asian Voice. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
- ^ The Annual of Urdu studies, number 11, 1996, “Some notes on Hindi and Urdu”, pp. 203–208.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Alam, Muzaffar. "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics." In Modern Asian Studies, vol. 32, no. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 317–349.
- ^ H. Dua, 2006, "Urdu", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition.
- ^ [2]
- ^ "Abstract of speakers’ strength of languages and mother tongues – 2001". Government of India. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
- ^ "Languages of Pakistan".
- ^ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version
- ^ "The World's 10 most influential Languages". Language Today. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
- ^ e.g. Gumperz (1982:20)
- ^ India Travelite: Holy Places - Ajmer
- ^ [3]
- ^ In the lower courts in Pakistan, despite the proceedings taking place in Urdu, the documents are in English whilst in the higher courts, ie the High Courts and the Supreme Court, both documents and proceedings are in English.
- ^ Zia, Khaver (1999), "A Survey of Standardisation in Urdu". 4th Symposium on Multilingual Information Processing, (MLIT-4), Yangon, Myanmar. CICC, Japan
- ^ "Urdu in Bihar". Language in India. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
- ^ http://jkgad.nic.in/statutory/Rules-Costitution-of-J&K.pdf
- ^ "Importance Of Urdu". GeoTauAisay.com. Retrieved 2010-08-08.
- ^ Colin P. Masica, The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge Language Surveys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 466.
- ^ "About Urdu". Afroz Taj (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
- ^ King, 1994.
- ^ Ahmad, R., 2006.
- ^ Delhi Public Library Catalog; Details for: महकता आंचल
- ^ The News, Karachi, Pakistan: Roman Urdu by Habib R Sulemani
- ^ http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0600.pdf
- ^ http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/shakespear/
- ^ http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:4746.shakespear
- ^ http://www.crulp.org/
- ^ http://www.tremu.gov.pk/tremu1/workingroups/pdfpresentations/UZT%20UNICODE%20MAPPING.pdf
- ^ Columbia University: Ghazal 36, Verse 11
- ^ Colin P. Masica, The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge Language Surveys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 27.
- ^ Gerald B. Kelley, Edward C. Dimock, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (1992). Dimensions of sociolinguistics in South Asia: papers in memory of Gerald B. Kelley. Oxford & IBH Pub. Co.. ISBN 8120405730. "... policy of Sanskritization resulted in a variety of Hindi which was far removed from everyday usage and became almost incomprehensible to the common man ..."
- ^ Maria Misra (2007). Vishnu's crowded temple: India since the Great Rebellion. Allan Lane. "... This linguistic cleansing not only destroyed Hindustani, but in its hyper-purist form rendered Hindi itself incomprehensible to the less well-educated and ...".
- ^ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?displaylang=ur&productID=38DF6AB1-13D4-409C-966D-CBE61F040027
- ^ http://aasims.wordpress.com/tag/ubuntu-in-urdu/
- Ahmad, Rizwan. 2006. "Voices people write: Examining Urdu in Devanagari". http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/NWAV/Abstracts/Papr172.pdf
- Alam, Muzaffar. 1998. "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics." In Modern Asian Studies, vol. 32, no. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 317–349.
- Asher, R. E. (Ed.). 1994. The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
- Azad, Muhammad Husain. 2001 [1907]. Aab-e hayat (Lahore: Naval Kishor Gais Printing Works) 1907 [in Urdu]; (Delhi: Oxford University Press) 2001. [In English translation]
- Azim, Anwar. 1975. Urdu a victim of cultural genocide. In Z. Imam (Ed.), Muslims in India (p. 259).
- Bhatia, Tej K. 1996. Colloquial Hindi: The Complete Course for Beginners. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11087-4 (Book), 0415110882 (Cassettes), 0415110890 (Book & Cassette Course)
- Bhatia, Tej K. and Koul Ashok. 2000. "Colloquial Urdu: The Complete Course for Beginners." London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13540-0 (Book); ISBN 0-415-13541-9 (cassette); ISBN 0-415-13542-7 (book and casseettes course)
- Chatterji, Suniti K. 1960. Indo-Aryan and Hindi (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
- Dua, Hans R. 1992. "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language". In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
- Dua, Hans R. 1994a. Hindustani. In Asher, 1994; pp. 1554.
- Dua, Hans R. 1994b. Urdu. In Asher, 1994; pp. 4863–4864.
- Durrani, Attash, Dr. 2008. Pakistani Urdu.Islamabad: National Language Authority, Pakistan.
- Gumperz, J.J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Hassan, Nazir and Omkar N. Koul 1980. Urdu Phonetic Reader. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.
- Kelkar, A. R. 1968. Studies in Hindi-Urdu: Introduction and word phonology. Poona: Deccan College.
- Khan, M. H. 1969. Urdu. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 5). The Hague: Mouton.
- King, Christopher R. 1994. One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
- Koul, Ashok K. 2008. Urdu Script and Vocabulary. Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies.
- Koul, Omkar N. 1994. Hindi Phonetic Reader. Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies.
- Koul, Omkar N. 2008. Modern Hindi Grammar. Springfield: Dunwoody Press.
- Narang, G. C. and D. A. Becker. 1971. Aspiration and nasalization in the generative phonology of Hindi-Urdu. Language, 47, 646–767.
- Ohala, M. 1972. Topics in Hindi-Urdu phonology. (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).
- "A Desertful of Roses", a site about Ghalib's Urdu ghazals by Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages at Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
- Phukan, S. 2000. The Rustic Beloved: Ecology of Hindi in a Persianate World, The Annual of Urdu Studies, vol 15, issue 5, pp. 1–30
- The Comparative study of Urdu and Khowar. Badshah Munir Bukhari National Language Authority Pakistan 2003.
- Rai, Amrit. 1984. A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-561643-X.
- Snell, Rupert Teach yourself Hindi: A complete guide for beginners. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC
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- "The Urdu Language"
- The poisonous potency of script: Hindi and Urdu, ROBERT D. KING
- [http://www.theurdulanguage.com "The Urdu Language" "The Urdu's Social and Political activities"]
[4]
